he, and what is he, and where is he, and why is he?"

"He's a gentleman at large who does nothing. That's who he is."

"He thinks ever so much of himself, then?"

"No;--he doesn't. And he is nephew to an old squire down in
Hampshire, who won't give him a penny. He oughtn't to want it,
however, because when he came of age he had ever so much money of his
own. But he does want it,--sometimes. He must have the property when
his uncle dies."

"Dear me;--how interesting!"

"As for the where he is, and why he is,--he comes here just when it
suits him, and because we were almost brought up together. He doesn't
dine here, and all that kind of thing, because papa is never at home.
Nobody ever does dine here."

Then there was a short pause. "This Mr. Newton isn't a lover then?"
asked Miss Bonner.

There was another pause before Clarissa could answer the question.
"No," she said; "no; he isn't a lover. We don't have any lovers at
Popham Villa." "Only that's not quite true," she said, after a pause.
"And as you are to live with us just like a sister, I'll tell you
about Gregory Newton, Ralph's brother." Then she did tell the story
of the clergyman's love and the clergyman's discomfiture; but she
said not a word of Ralph's declaration and Ralph's great sin on that
fatal evening. And the way in which she told her story about the one
brother altogether disarmed Mary Bonner's suspicion as to the other.

In truth Clarissa did not know whether it was or was not her
privilege to regard Ralph Newton as her lover. He had not been to the
cottage since that evening; and though the words he had spoken were
still sweet in her ears,--so sweet that she could not endure the
thought of abandoning their sweetness,--still she had a misgiving
that they were in some sort rendered nugatory by his great fault. She
had forgiven the fault;--looking back at it now over the distance
of eight or ten days, had forgiven it with all her heart; but still
there remained with her an undefined and unpleasant feeling that the
spoken words, accompanied by a deed so wicked, were absorbed, and,
as it were, drowned in the wickedness of the deed. What if the words
as first spoken were only a prelude to the deed,--for, as she well
remembered, they had been spoken twice,--and if the subsequent words
were only an excuse for it! There was a painful idea in her mind that
such might possibly be the case, and that if so, the man could never
be forgiven, or at least oug